21 Shocking Secrets People Found Out About Family Members After They Died

Some stories are better left untold, at least until your own passing. These people learned about some pretty unfathomable facts about their family that they couldn’t believe to be real. Imagine that in the wake of your parent’s death, you found out they were not as loyal to the family as you think?

There’s just something about learning these facts only after they’re gone – you cannot confront them for it, neither will they ever be able to explain themselves. Stories left untold, unearthed by people who just more often than not feel unsure about what they should do with the facts.

1.

“This isn’t shocking, more cute. My grandad was a farmer his whole life. Every animal loved him. We’d go to a new place, and dogs would be coming straight to him, horses would cuddle with him. He just had a charm with them. When cleaning out his closet and digging in his pockets to make sure nothing of value was thrown in the wash, we found grains, bits of dried meats, dog treats, bits of old carrot (for the horses). Man’s been bribing animals with food all this his life.” – MikeBsleepy

2.

“My great aunt and uncle never had kids, so they treated me and my siblings like their grandkids. My aunt died ten years ago this year. So I was looking up her gravesite so I can visit and saw a suggested link to a page about the grave of her child. I was very confused because I always just assumed they didn’t want kids. Turns out they had a son who only lived to be a few months old. Made me sad to think that they did want kids and either couldn’t or wouldn’t after their son died.” – happyharborgirl

3.

“My grandpa had a secret family that he kept up with our whole lives and never said a word about. There were graduation pictures, Christmas cards, the whole deal. Completely blew our minds.” – Wan_Lembo

4.

“I met all 4 of my mom’s boyfriends at her funeral. It was a surprise to them and myself.” – trashpanda4811

5.

“My wife’s uncle was a field agent for the CIA. They would fly him and his wife to Italy, where they would swap out their IDs. Issue them their cover IDs and then fly them out to pose as Italian Tourists.” – yamaha2000us

6.

“My grandpa was always a very solid, Dutch, quiet, hard-working, Christian, gentle, honorable, honest, family-oriented guy. Years after he died, I found some of his journals and had them translated into English.

NO. HE. WAS. NOT.” – themage1028

7.

“It’s not an unpleasant thing by any means, but it was definitely a surprise.

My grandfather passed away at the start of 2020, and he was a beloved man by his family and community. I think it was my aunt who told the story at the funeral, but it was about when he was stationed in Japan serving in the United States Air Force.

One night he found an airman trying to assault a young Japanese woman who did their laundry. My grandfather was raised in a home with an abusive father figure and did not tolerate any form of cruelty to women or children. He beat the man within an inch of his life and was sent to a different camp for six weeks.

A similar story I already knew growing up was how he did a similar thing to a man who was beating his children in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Our family jokingly called it “Walt-Mart” from then on. (his first name was Walter).” – StarlightViolets

8.

“Most shocking thing I found out was that he existed. Researching my family tree (got back to 1550) found I had a direct uncle with Downs Syndrome. Poor f**ker was just shoved in a home and forgotten about ’till he died.” – mellonians

9.

“My grandfather was very wealthy, and I found out after he passed that he anonymously paid for hundreds of funerals for children in minority, low-income parts of our town.” – Loveiswhy-nohate

10.

“My grandmother dated Mr. Rogers in high school.” – wutang21412141

11.

“My great-grandfather had not, in fact, been eaten by a bear on Mt. Rainier (he was a park ranger). Instead, he’d been cheating on my great-grandmother and was summarily run out of town by her brothers. He moved to Alaska, and nobody knew what had become of him until we located his grave, many decades later.” – The_Mouse_That_Jumps

12.

“My great-grandpa on my dad’s side lived to be 101.

He was the pinnacle of health for his entire life. Ate a very good diet with basically zero sugar, got regular exercise, and had all his mental functions and senses even in his old age. The man was still walking everywhere and taking busses on his own until literally the day he died.

He passed due to medical complications after a broken hip from a fall when he tripped on some steps. After he was gone, my family went to clear out the house and get everything in order. My dad opened a drawer to find a hidden stash full of chocolate bars and wrappers. The dude was so proud of his health that he felt the need to hide a sweet treat from his own family.” – ThePsychoKnot

13.

“My dad gave up a 100% fellowship for a math Ph.D. in order to work to provide for an unanticipated pregnancy (me). He really wanted to teach, and he was a natural. In the 60 years I knew him, he never mentioned the Ph.D. or fellowship opportunity. Not once. I found out going through his papers after his death.” – mel_cache

14.

“I took care of my dad before he passed and also handled his finances afterward (I am the youngest of four). Come to find out my parents were divorced well before I would have been conceived. That plus the fact that I have blonde hair and blue eyes and all my siblings have dark hair and brown eyes, pretty much got the ball rolling, and I started to ask questions of my mother and other family members. Mom initially denied it, but after I came back with Ancestry results showing another man was my biological father, she came clean.” – pdxmhrn

15.

“We found a sex swing in my little Catholic grandma’s attic.” – campindan

16.

“My dad passed away in an accident four years ago, and it totally broke my mom and siblings. He and I never really got along, so I was sad but didn’t take it nearly as hard as my family. A year after he passed, my mom gave me his old desktop when my computer died. I found out that he’d been cheating on my mom for years when I stumbled onto the folder where he saved every chat log, picture, video, etc. Most of them were only online, but he met up with one woman while he was out of town ‘for work.’ I’ve never told my family and don’t think I ever will.” – Similar-Fortune-5825

17.

“My great-aunt and great-uncle were siblings who had an incest relationship for most of their lives. They shared a house for the last decades of their lives, which I always thought was very sweet, siblings caring for each other as they got older. Some of my best childhood memories are of visiting them and playing in their big yard with their dogs when I was a little kid.

Years ago, I was talking with my father about how much I missed them when he just offhandedly told me that the two were in an incest relationship since they were kids. My mother confirmed, laughing at me like I was dumb for not knowing when it was obvious, which it apparently was since everyone in the family knew except me.” – OneAide777

18.

“My grandpa lied on his immigration papers when he came over from Canada. He was literally an illegal immigrant that was almost deported but got to stay because it was WW2 and they said they’d give him citizenship if he joined the military.

He spent his late dementia years talking about how “illegals were ruining America.” Ironic.” – Randibug91

19.

“After he died, found out dad served in Vietnam as a combat medic. Kinda explains a) why he never said anything about it b) was so resistant to me enlisting at 17 and c) had really good first aid skills. He was also married twice before meeting my mom and published a heap of fiction and nonfiction books.” – samuelson098

20.

“Great-grandma lived in a boarding house while great-grandpa was a traveling salesman. There was a nicely dressed man who would come through on business like clockwork. He thought 4-year-old grandma was adorable and would watch her for great-grandma if she needed to run to the store. He suddenly stopped coming around and a few weeks later great-grandma saw his picture in the paper. Turns out, she had been letting Pretty Boy Floyd babysit her kid.” – GreenOnionCrusader

21.

“My mom didn’t want me after I was born. She tried to give me away to my aunt, the only person she trusted with me.

My grandfather told me that, the night after her funeral that morning.

My aunt confirmed a few days later.” domestic_omnom